That's so messed up! Seriously, just about a week ago I was looking at pictures from phone and I thought to myself, "it's not the sensor that makes the images grainy, it's the amount of light getting to it". So I played around with an old pair of binoculars and sure enough in the same lighting, the image was way more crisp using the binoculars. Also, the real optical zoom beat the pants off the digital zoom.
Great minds think alike I guess.